ArizonaThunder
Hello, This is my first post on one of these forums. But I have gained so much from all of you that I wanted to give back a little. I hope this helps. it seems to be a hot topic about virtual DJ being compatible with MP4 (h.264). I have spent many days trying to resolve this issue myself. But I feel pretty confident that I have an answer that should work for most of you. If MP4 (h.264) is already working for you... congratulations. But for those of you still struggling give this a shot.
There are many factors that go into formatting an MP4 (h.264) and whereas programs like cyberlink power DVD and Windows media player are more forgiving about how the MP4 (h.264) are encoded, virtual DJ is rather fussy. But there are many valid reasons should want to convert their videos to this format. I will leave those reasons for the topic for another post post down the line. For now I will stick to how to resolve the issue at hand, which is how to convert to this format and make it compatible with virtual DJ.
As I mentioned there are a great many factors that go into coding a MP4 (h.264), below are the steps necessary on coding them in such a way that it works well with virtual DJ.
You will need a program like TMPGEnc in order to follow these steps. You can download this program is a free trial which will give you an opportunity to see how well this works for you. Listed below are the relevant settings that you need to follow.
MPEG-4 AVC format (this is the h.264 format)
Profile = Baseline (IMPORTANT)
Level = Automatic
Size = 720 X 480 (This is what I use but you can change this if you like)
Aspect Ratio = Display 4:3
Framerate = 29.97 fps (Interlaced)
Rate Control Mode = 2 pass Constant bitrate (Best Quaility, but slow. I set up a batch to run while I sleep therefore time is not really an issue here)
Average bitrate = 3000 (I can see no difference between the original and a MP4 converted at this bit rate, and it will still cut your file size in half)
Video System = Automatic
Audio = Bitrate 192 (Your Choice Here)
You should be able to leave everything else at its default.
Now here was the tricky thing. For whatever reason virtual DJ does not like the file extension .MP4. Adding this to the list of extensions and setting the virtual DJ codec does not seem to work. But if you simply rename the extension from MP4 to MPG then virtual DJ likes this format very well.
I am using a Dell precision workstation with two dual core 2.4 GHz processors, 4 MB of RAM and four internal 500 GB hard drives and an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS with 640 MB of onboard RAM. It's rather a powerhouse but I still had a great many issues getting virtual DJ it to work with this format. But this is fixed it for me and hopefully it will fix it for you as well.
Thanks to all of you for all of your posts. They helped me greatly and led me to this resolution. Best of luck!
There are many factors that go into formatting an MP4 (h.264) and whereas programs like cyberlink power DVD and Windows media player are more forgiving about how the MP4 (h.264) are encoded, virtual DJ is rather fussy. But there are many valid reasons should want to convert their videos to this format. I will leave those reasons for the topic for another post post down the line. For now I will stick to how to resolve the issue at hand, which is how to convert to this format and make it compatible with virtual DJ.
As I mentioned there are a great many factors that go into coding a MP4 (h.264), below are the steps necessary on coding them in such a way that it works well with virtual DJ.
You will need a program like TMPGEnc in order to follow these steps. You can download this program is a free trial which will give you an opportunity to see how well this works for you. Listed below are the relevant settings that you need to follow.
MPEG-4 AVC format (this is the h.264 format)
Profile = Baseline (IMPORTANT)
Level = Automatic
Size = 720 X 480 (This is what I use but you can change this if you like)
Aspect Ratio = Display 4:3
Framerate = 29.97 fps (Interlaced)
Rate Control Mode = 2 pass Constant bitrate (Best Quaility, but slow. I set up a batch to run while I sleep therefore time is not really an issue here)
Average bitrate = 3000 (I can see no difference between the original and a MP4 converted at this bit rate, and it will still cut your file size in half)
Video System = Automatic
Audio = Bitrate 192 (Your Choice Here)
You should be able to leave everything else at its default.
Now here was the tricky thing. For whatever reason virtual DJ does not like the file extension .MP4. Adding this to the list of extensions and setting the virtual DJ codec does not seem to work. But if you simply rename the extension from MP4 to MPG then virtual DJ likes this format very well.
I am using a Dell precision workstation with two dual core 2.4 GHz processors, 4 MB of RAM and four internal 500 GB hard drives and an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS with 640 MB of onboard RAM. It's rather a powerhouse but I still had a great many issues getting virtual DJ it to work with this format. But this is fixed it for me and hopefully it will fix it for you as well.
Thanks to all of you for all of your posts. They helped me greatly and led me to this resolution. Best of luck!
Posted Mon 04 Feb 08 @ 11:56 am
A Man and His Music
Thanks for the info. I am a .vob man, but signed up to SmashVidz last week, and their videos are .mp4. I have not had any problems, and just checked to see what the file was named. The extension is .mp4 not .MP4. I don't know if that makes a difference or not, but maybe someone else can try, and let us know.
Posted Mon 04 Feb 08 @ 12:24 pm
low-fat-al
ArizonaThunder wrote :
... 4 MB of RAM
wow... are you sure? 4 megabytes?
hee hee
good info! Thanks! Been experimenting a little with this format as well for portability and compatibility with slower systems not quite robust as my main video dj rig.
I got video to work on a $600 toshiba laptop with this format!! Very promising for users with lower specs.
Posted Mon 04 Feb 08 @ 1:07 pm
ArizonaThunder
Thanks for catching my typo.......that's correct.............the RAM is 4 gig not 4 meg.
I'm glad to see that everyone else has not had to go through all the headaches I did to get it working. I'm actually using NuMark's Version of the software called CUE. I had actually contacted technical support for help (an advantage of the CUE version...telephone support) and told them the issue I was having and asked if a near future update might resolve the issue. The tech guy I was speaking with did not even know what a Mp4 (h.264) was (telephone tech support maybe not such an advantage). Anyway, it left me feeling we may be on our own for now.
I'm glad to see that everyone else has not had to go through all the headaches I did to get it working. I'm actually using NuMark's Version of the software called CUE. I had actually contacted technical support for help (an advantage of the CUE version...telephone support) and told them the issue I was having and asked if a near future update might resolve the issue. The tech guy I was speaking with did not even know what a Mp4 (h.264) was (telephone tech support maybe not such an advantage). Anyway, it left me feeling we may be on our own for now.
Posted Mon 04 Feb 08 @ 4:02 pm
dj-e-lectric
don't let the .mp4 file extension fool you....when buying downloaded videos (smashvids, exclusive gooves and my12inch and others) ASK what they are encoded with because last time I checked they are divx or some derivative NOT h.264 unless they have recently changed. the file extensions are not really a file format as we typically think of a file format, you can think of them more as a container that you can thow pretty much whatever you want into it and it will work as long as you have the proper codec (I have found some codecs are very forgiving and open as to which codecs they will decode with and others such as 3ivx only seem to decode if you have THEIR codec...the main problem with my12inch...........
I have only been using it for a little over a week now but the ffdshow (free by the way) h.264 codec seems to be the most compatible with VDJ and decoding other mp4 and avi files encoded with other codecs such as divx, ligos, and cinepack
If you have problems with .mp4 extension working check your codecs to make sure they are compatible and then in most cases (again depending on your codecs) you can usually change the extension to .avi and your h.264 encoded files should work with no problems.....
Whatever you do just remember the main rule of computers...computers=voodoo
I have only been using it for a little over a week now but the ffdshow (free by the way) h.264 codec seems to be the most compatible with VDJ and decoding other mp4 and avi files encoded with other codecs such as divx, ligos, and cinepack
If you have problems with .mp4 extension working check your codecs to make sure they are compatible and then in most cases (again depending on your codecs) you can usually change the extension to .avi and your h.264 encoded files should work with no problems.....
Whatever you do just remember the main rule of computers...computers=voodoo
Posted Tue 05 Feb 08 @ 2:56 am
D-Twizzle
Arizona, I'm not sure what the Cue version releases are, but VDJ version 5 release 6 added the mp4/h.264 support without 3rd party codecs. Maybe you just needed to update.
Posted Tue 05 Feb 08 @ 10:25 am
ArizonaThunder
Yes..........I have the latest version. But as I mentioned previously, there are many options and settings available when creating the mp4 and virtual DJ appears (at least on my machine) to be fussy as to how the mp4 is created. This is why I included the instructions of how I managed to overcome the issue.
As with all computer issues, there are far to many variables for a common compatibility structure. So it's back to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". If it is, give some of these suggestions a try.
Thanks for all your responses....between all of us we are "genius" and we should certainly be able to overcome this issue......and then life (at least in the DJ realm) will be better for all of us.....or not.........I think many of us just enjoy the struggle (I'm afraid that I'm one of them). Have a great day!
As with all computer issues, there are far to many variables for a common compatibility structure. So it's back to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". If it is, give some of these suggestions a try.
Thanks for all your responses....between all of us we are "genius" and we should certainly be able to overcome this issue......and then life (at least in the DJ realm) will be better for all of us.....or not.........I think many of us just enjoy the struggle (I'm afraid that I'm one of them). Have a great day!
Posted Tue 05 Feb 08 @ 10:56 am
ArizonaThunder
CORRECTION.........
Framerate = 29.97 fps (Interlaced) should be.........Framerate = 29.97 fps (Progressive). Interlaced will likely give you some unpleasant scan lines.
Framerate = 29.97 fps (Interlaced) should be.........Framerate = 29.97 fps (Progressive). Interlaced will likely give you some unpleasant scan lines.
Posted Tue 05 Feb 08 @ 10:41 pm